Blog

By HVculture on June 10, 2011

In 2009, Joseph Gerber was sentenced to 13 years and four months in prison for possessing child pornography and giving his 13 year-old daughter drugs. But that’s not the crazy part: Gerber’s child porn was actually pornographic pictures with his own daughter’s head pasted on real women. Thirteen years sounds like appropriate justice for a man who Photoshops his little girl’s face onto porn.

But the Sixth District Court of Appeals in San Jose saw things a little differently in this matter when it ruled on Wednesday.

The court said Gerber should not have been convicted of possessing child pornography because “California’s child porn ban, punishable by up to three years in prison, ‘requires a real child to have actually engaged in or simulated the sexual act depicted.” The ruling was 3-0.

Justice Franklin Elia said: “Although we may find such altered images morally repugnant, we conclude that mere possession of them remains protected by the First Amendment.”

No harm, no foul! Even though everything Gerber did was morally reprehensible and abhorrent, he gets to be re-sentenced for the totally legal things he did.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the teenager’s mother had suggested in 2008 that she get to know Gerber better, her separated husband for about 12 years. Apparently.

During their visits over the next few months, the girl said, Gerber gave her marijuana, which she had used before, and cocaine, which she wanted to try. During one of the drug sessions, she said, Gerber asked her to pose for pictures and she agreed, but she burst into tears when he told her to strip to her underwear.

On top of that, “the court also overturned two of Gerber’s three drug convictions, saying the trial judge had instructed jurors on the wrong law.” So basically, it’s pretty difficult to give good jail time to a guy giving drugs to his teenage daughter and taking lewd photos of her.

The San Francisco Chronicle also reports that “Prosecutors could retry those counts and could also appeal Wednesday’s ruling to the state Supreme Court.” Giving hope to everyone out there that maybe Joseph Gerber will get a little bit of punishment for doing something so morally repugnant.